According to its latest statistics, the Honor Committee has nearly finished processing the mass of plagiarism cases initiated by Physics Professor Louis Bloomfield beginning in April 2001. Though the total number of Bloomfield cases now has risen to 156, Honor has completed investigations on 116 and currently is investigating the remaining 40 cases.
As a result of 21 completed trials, seven students have been found guilty and asked to leave the University. One student was found not guilty. The remaining students submitted psychological evaluations or left admitting guilt.
A total of 16 students have left the University admitting guilt, including both those who left before and those who left after their cases had been sent to trial.
There are 22 trials currently pending.
The pace of handling students' cases has increased, Vice Chairman for Investigations Cara Coolbaugh said. "We got a lot of focus right before the end of last semester."
Problems with uncooperative accused students and difficulty reaching accused students who were studying abroad or who had transferred caused delays earlier in the process of dealing with the Bloomfield cases.
But there have been no problems yet this semester, Coolbaugh said.
Thus far, more than half of the Bloomfield cases have been dropped at or before the investigative panel stage, with only 43 cases referred to trial. The purpose of the I-panel is to review the findings of the investigation and decide whether to formally accuse of student of an honor offense and send the case to trial.
Many of the cases initiated against the students who originally wrote the papers have been dropped, while those accused of cheating have been prosecuted.
Bloomfield, who teaches "How Things Work," began initiating cases after he developed a computer program to search for plagiarism in term papers submitted electronically. He initially charged 122 students from past semesters, but the number has risen to 156. Bloomfield initiated one new case against a student who took his class last semester.
"Optimistically we'll get [the investigations] done within the next three to four weeks," Coolbaugh said.
The Bloomfield trials will "definitely continue well into next semester," Vice Chairman for Trials Christopher Scott said. The majority should be finished this semester, but "we can only do two trials a day on the weekend," Scott said.
"There's just not enough time, unless we start having trials during the week. But that's not really possible" because trials take five to six hours on average, he said.
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